


so long sentiment

by ghostl0rd



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Original Character(s), Pseudo-Mother Figure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 05:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8000632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostl0rd/pseuds/ghostl0rd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Glauca is not sentimental.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Survivors and Fools

**Author's Note:**

> Just a collection of personal headcanons/oneshots surrounding Drautos leading up to the fall of Insomnia and afterward.

_"So long sentiment_  
_It doesn't matter now..."_  
\- **Celldweller** , _So Long Sentiment_

* * *

Glauca is not sentimental. It isn’t to say that he has perfect control over his subconscious, however.

* * *

Sometimes, in the brief silences that precede battle the memories hit, unbidden and uninhibited, and when Glauca closes his eyes he is no longer Supreme Commander of the Niflheim army, but a scrawny wisp of a boy nicknamed ‘Wolf’, only nine years old, all knobbly knees and shivering miserably in the Baldr Mountains. He doesn’t remember how long they’ve been here, how long they’ve been running—only how long they are going to continue to be here.  Galahad is a two day hike from where they are, but Val is sure she can get him there in half that time.

“Eyes!” 

She catches him by the scruff of his collar and yanks him violently back, before he can trip over tree roots concealed beneath ten nights of snowfall, and plunge into the thorny ravine below.  She flicks him in the forehead sharply afterward as punishment.

Wolf mumbles a ‘sorry’ to his feet but Val shushes him and drags him down to the ground beside her.  His gaze shifts from the rifle in her hands to her face— bright and expressive, now an unreadable slate.  Some say she was once a great warrior at the service of a king.

“I served a _man_ ,” Val will say later, over the fire when they take shelter in a cave hidden behind overgrown vines and tree roots.  She shifts forward, the glow of the flames illuminating the hard lines of her face from below. “And the thing about serving _men_ , _Wolf_ , is no matter how strong they are, no matter how heroic they _will_ weaken and they _will_ die.”

“I think you’re strong,” Wolf said, quiet, and more to himself, but Val heard.

She flashed him a sharp grin that was strangely indecipherable. “Not strong,” she said. “A _survivor_.”

“Sur-viv-or…” This is the first time Wolf learns the word, tastes its syllables on his tongue. “Surv-ivor…surviv...or.  Survivor.”

“Yes, _survivor_.” Val said. “ _Audeamus_.  _We dare_.”

“ _Audeamus_.” Wolf is surprised he gets it right on the first try.

Val…somehow isn’t.

When her gloved thumb flicks off the safety, Wolf casts his gaze back to the ravine, following her line of sight. Two hundred meters away a man lies on his stomach by the stream, drinking and splashing water desperately against his face.  Val squints dispassionately through the scope for a moment, then motions for Wolf to come closer. 

In between resting and learning to track deer and elk, Val has taught Wolf to shoot.  One would think him used to her rifle’s weight by now—he already knows how best to manoeuvre it with his hands being as tiny as they are – but muscle memory is not enough to overcome the knowledge that he holds _power_ in his hands. The power to take away life.  Power he’s seen Val use with little hesitation in picking off children who Niflheim uses as bait to entrap fellow runaways.  Some of these children Wolf had even been friends with in school, had played leap-frog with long before the first shells leveled his hometown.  He knows why Val did it—‘them or us, Wolf’—but he still struggles with that cold logic. 

(Today is the day he stops struggling.)

“His leg’s broken,” Wolf observes.

“And?”

“We could save him.”

Val tilts her head—tight, black curls flecked with grey, dried leaves and twig netted in a few of the strands. 

“Your parents were doctors,” she remembers, and Wolf nods, unsure if she perceives that as strength or weakness.  She’s never coddled him, but she’s never been gentle with him either—has tossed him right over her shoulder onto his behind a few times when his frustration gets the better of him during a sparring session.  “Alright, Wolf. Time for a test.  See if anything’s stuck in that pretty little head of yours. Let’s say we save him. Let’s say you patch up his leg real good—”

“I could do it—” Wolf says in earnest.

“I know you can,” Val says, and when she continues, the smile on her face, every little line, every crease near her eyes goes razor thin and sharp.  “Let’s say he wants to come with us. Let’s say we let him. Let’s say we even share our food with him.  Let’s say that you and I are nice enough to _slow_ _down_ enough for him to keep up.  Enough for _Niflheim_ to keep up. You following, Wolf?”

Wolf nods, feeling a sudden dryness in his throat.

“You know what happens when Niflheim catches up to people don’t you?  Sol and Old Nan. Your parents. Tyr and his brother.”

Wolf nods again.

“Say we have a chance to run— _run,_ Wolf. Not trickle along like we'll do for our broken-legged friend. _Run_ ,” she says. “If the choice was between your life and his—would you leave him behind?"

When Wolf doesn't answer immediately, she grips him roughly by the arm, forcing him to look at her. 

"Are you a _survivor_ , Wolf?  Or are you a _fool_?” she hisses.

Wolf peers through the scope, down at the man crawling around on his stomach, trying to find a piece of branch or stick thick enough to fashion into a splint.  In just a few hours the sun will set, and if the soldiers do not find him, it will be a tossup between the elements and the beasts roaming Baldr.  Wolf’s thumbnail grazes the safety catch. He controls his breathing, like he’s seen Val do, and drowns out everything else until the only sound he can hear is his heart pounding steadily in his chest. There is a brief moment of uncertainty when the man below suddenly stills, like a deer sensing it is being watched and Wolf wonders against the impossibility of the man knowing. 

**_THA-THUMP. THA-THUMP._ **

Wolf closes his eyes. 

* * *

Glauca's sword plunges through Lady Sylva’s chest—deadly and deep and _true_ , and while her eyes widen in horror, Glauca twists the handle, swiftly severing the last strings of life tethering her to this world.

Her corpse pitches forward after he yanks it out, and the sight of her hunched over, pathetically _prostrate_ , has irritation coiling tight in Glauca’s gut, burning hot as the fires razing the forest all around him.  Val's laughter rings shrill in his ears as he turns his attention to Regis, presently worrying over his son.

Lady Sylva was a fool.

 

Regis fares better than she did, but Glauca knows, as his back slams against the cliff wall, pinned by swords wielded by invisible masters...

 

...that it is only a matter of time before Regis makes the same mistake she did.


	2. Wolves and Dogs

“Kings and pawns, survivors and fools…” Val has a cigarette balanced between her lips while she cleans _Raven_. She’d swiped them from the pockets of the half-eaten corpse of an old wino she claimed to have known as ‘Bard’—‘when he was still alive, and not in so many pieces’.

Wolf is lying curled as close as he can to the fire without actually catching aflame when he feels her boot nudging him roughly in the bottom. In his head a faraway gunshot echoes and bounces against the corners of his mind without stop.  Val’s boot couldn’t have pulled him out of that oblivion at a better time. He makes a sound that is halfway between a growl and a grunt and rolls over so that the fire warms his back. 

“Got a riddle for you,” Val says.  She takes a long drag and tilts her head back, making smoke rings in the night air.  “Kids like those kinds of things, don’t they?”

Wolf doubts she’d be discouraged from reciting it if he told her _he_ doesn’t.   He also doubts that he should still be considered a ‘kid’ because he’s killed a man, and Val says only beasts and men kill men. He doesn’t physically pass for the latter--still has a ways to go with ‘putting a little more meat on his bones’, like Val teases, sometimes--but maybe the former. 

Maybe he’s more beast than boy at this point.

“What’s the riddle?”

Val finishes off her cigarette, crushes it underfoot, and carefully sets _Raven_ aside.  She leans forward, arms braced on her thighs. In the glow of the firelight he can see flecks of yellow in her irises.

Wolf is certain he might already know the answer to this one.

 

* * *

 

_“Kings and pawns, survivors and fools.  Wolves, and dogs…who uses who?”_

“What.”

The woman reading off the clipboard glanced up at the Captain, whose gaze was fixated on the teenager sitting calmly on the other side of the two way mirror, expression blank, hands folded neatly on the table. He had been in there for over two hours—part of the Kingsglaive's screening process—and so far had been the only cadet to remain unperturbed by that fact. Most tended to fidget at the forty-five minute mark. 

“It’s a phrase he likes to repeat to himself, from time to time.”

“What’s it mean?”

“Exactly what it means.” The Captain frowned at her and she offered a wry smile.  “His words, not mine.”

“So he’s smart.”  

“ _Very_ smart.” The woman flipped a few pages over, then passed him the clipboard. “Aptitude scores.”

“And practicals?”

“Lower—only by a tiny margin.  Hand-eye co-ordination is excellent, spatial awareness, agility and stamina are all above average…he learns fast.  He doesn’t forget.”

The Captain who was reading all of this as she spoke, slowly shook his head. “He’s a machine.  Where’d you say you find him?”

“I didn’t.  He found us.”

 

* * *

 

 

_“…wandering the border, smuggling defectors into Galahad.  Had Raven on him...” the voice lowered slightly “little shit.”_

_“You sure?”_

_“Why?  You know anyone else who mods .50 calibers for fun?”_

_“Actually—”_

_“Pro Aris et Focis.  The stupid gun had that carved onto the stock, and_ her _fingerprints all over the trigger.  There’s even a little blood—I’ll bet you a hundred gil some of it’s hers, too, if you wanna get the lab involved.”_

_“So is the boy…you know…”_

_A scoff. “Val didn’t swing that way.  At least, I don’t think…ehh I don’t fucking know. She was hard to read.  But if that little shit’s hers, then he definitely takes after his old man because he looks nothing like her.”_

_Silence._

_“Not like Aldercapt to take an interest in rats…”_

_“Hey, the Valkyrie was a rat, too—once upon a time…”_

 

* * *

 

 

The room was cold.

Cold in the way that being in it invoked a sense of isolation, a feeling of detachment from reality and time.   The walls, floor and ceiling were painted white, so everywhere Wolf looked, harsh fluorescent lighting stung his eyes.  There were no windows, the only way in and out a steel door with a slot that only opened during meal times.

A bunk was bolted along one side of the wall which Wolf slept underneath, using it as cover.  He wasn’t in the mountains, where a single sound could rouse him into action without missing a heartbeat, but that didn’t qualify his present situation as any less dangerous. The first time he’d slept in the bunk, he’d slept too long, too deeply and the notion that he’d left himself vulnerable to his captors was terrifying enough for him not to make the same mistake again. Noise was predictable; silence less so.

The door swung open. 

A polished pair of oxfords trailed in quietly after the heavy booted footfalls of a guard, both stopping just a few steps short of the bunk.  Someone was whistling. 

“Oi!” There was a loud clang as the guard rapped his night stick against the metal frame.  The whistling stopped.  “I know you’re under there—”

“Thank you, Gunnar.” The second man’s voice was slightly amused.  “I will take it from here.”

“Sir.  I’ll be right outside.”

“Of course.”

The whistling started up again, the soldier shutting the door behind him as he left.  The visitor took one of the stools from behind the table bolted in the centre of the room.

_FLICK-FLICK-FLICK_

“If you’re not going to talk, I’m just going to smoke.  Either way I still win,” he said. 

Wolf said nothing, only wrinkled his nose when the scent of tobacco hit his nostrils. 

“So, _Rat_.  They tell me you had _Raven_ on you when they brought you in, is that right?” The man went on to ask.  Some of the excess ash from his cigarette found its way onto the floor, which he swept away with his shoe. “You know I _could_ always ask Gunnar to drag you out by the ear and string you upside down if I wanted, but I think you can handle an adult conversation if you’ve been traipsing around after the likes of her, hmm?  My Supreme Commander has half a mind to run you right through with his sword, and frankly, I’m tempted to let him have his way, but here’s the thing: he never really liked Val all that much.”

Wolf frowned.  The man was saying words, but he had no idea what any of it meant.  Silence was the best course of action.

“See, Val was my first choice—till she grew a conscience, of course—but maybe I’m sentimental.  Maybe that’s why you’re still alive right now. Maybe one could say there’s bias at work here from all sides. Still, it doesn’t mean _you’re_ innocent.  You’ve left me short a few good men.”

“They were murderers.” The justification had left Wolf’s mouth before he’d even realized he was speaking.   

“Ahh so we are going to chat after all!” The man proclaimed happily. He didn’t turn in his seat.

_FLICK-FLICK-FLICK_

More smoke, more ash.

“Isn’t your back hurting?” the man asked.

It did, but Wolf had no intention of letting it show. “I’m used to it.”

“Oh, I’ve little doubt about that.  But be a good sport and come out here, and let’s you and I have a nice little chat and see if you’ve anything of value to offer before I decide to leave you at the mercy of my very irate Supreme Commander.  See, he was fucking one of the men you sniped, and so that’s not very good for you now, is it.”

Wolf scowled.  The man chuckled.

“I’m sorry, that doesn’t seem fair, does it?  I mean you’re only _eight_ —”

“I’m _ten_.” Wolf snapped.

Silence.

“Okay, tell you what.  I’ve got a riddle for you, and if you guess right, I’ll find a way to get you into Caeruleus’ ‘improved’ graces.  If not...well, you had your chance.  If you really are Val’s protégé you should have no problem answering.”

_Are you a survivor?_

_Or are you a fool?_

Wolf crawled out from under the bed and quietly took the seat across from the man in the white suit.

“Tell me, Rat." Iedolas Aldercapt smiled.  "The difference between the loyalty of a dog, and the loyalty of a wolf?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the tune being whistled is the Drunken Whaler from Dishonored


End file.
